Icarus File #25: 1941 (dir by Steven Spielberg)

Posted on January 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the year 1979, a young Steven Spielberg attempted to conquer comedy in the same way that he previously conquered horror with Jaws and science fiction with Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Working from a script written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, Spielberg made a film about the days immediately following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The name of the film was 1941 and it remains Steven Spielberg’s only attempt to direct a full-out comedy. There’s a reason for that.

The film follows a large group of characters over the course of one day and night in 1941. It’s been six days since Pearl Harbor was attacked and the streets of Los Angeles are full of young men who are preparing to ship out and older man who are paranoid about when the next attack is going to come. However, Major General Joseph Stilwell (Robert Stack) just wants to see Dumbo at the local theater. Meanwhile, his womanizing aide (Tim Matheson, giving the same performance here that he did in National Lampoon’s Animal House) just wants to get Stillwell’s aviation-lusting secretary (Nancy Allen) into an airplane.

Elsewhere, Ward Douglas (Ned Beatty) is happy to allow Sgt. Tree (Dan Aykroyd) and his men (including John Candy) to set up on an anti-aircraft gun in his front yard. Ward’s daughter, Betty (Dianne Kay), is only concerned about entering a dance contest with her friend, Maxine (Wendie Jo Sperber). Cpl. Sitarski (Treat Williams) and dishwasher Wally Stephens (Bobby D iCicco) both hope to be Betty’s partner and their rivalry leads to a massive (and seemingly never-ending) brawl.

While Ward deals with the gun in his front yard, another concerned citizen — Claude Crumm (Murray Hamilton) — keeps watch from atop of Ferris wheel, along with amateur ventriloquist Herbie Kazlminsky (Eddie Deezen).

But that’s not all! Susan Backilinie recreates her role from a previous Spielberg film, skinny dipping while the Jaws theme plays in the background and running straight into a submarine that is commanded by Commander Akiro Mitamura (Toshiro Mifune, trying to maintain his dignity). Mifune decides to attack Hollywood but no one on the submarine is sure where that is. Christopher Lee appears as an arrogant German who is along for the ride. Slim Pickens shows up as a lumberjack who is temporarily captured by the Japanese. John Belushi plays Wild Bill Kelso, who flies his airplane through Los Angeles. Warren Oates yells and laughs. Dick Miller, Elijah Cook Jr. and Lionel Stander show up in small roles.

“Since when is Steven funny?” According to Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, this was the reaction that most of Spielberg’s friends had when he announced that his next film would be a screwball comedy set during World War II. Watching the film, one gets their point. The majority of the film’s humor comes from people looking at the camera and screaming. There’s a lot physical comedy, which would undoubtedly work in small amounts but which grows rather tiring when it’s dragged out to the extent that Spielberg’s drags it out. (A brawl at a USO show seems like it should be funny but Spielberg allows it to go on for too long and the careful choreography takes away any element of spontaneity.) The film attempts to duplicate the style of Animal House (and it’s probably not a coincidence that Matheson, Belushi, and director John Landis all have roles in the film) but Spielberg often seems as if he’s trying too hard. There’s nothing subversive about the humor. It’s more antic than funny.

A huge problem is that there really isn’t much of a story here. Spielberg, who is normally one of Hollywood’s best storytellers, attempts to do a loose, Altman-style ensemble film and the result is that none of the characters feel alive and there’s never any sense of narrative momentum. There are a few performers who manage to make an impression amongst all the explosions and the yelling. John Belushi has the advantage of not having to share the majority of his scenes with anyone else. Warren Oates’s manic energy is more than welcome. Wendie Jo Sperber deserved more screentime. Murray Hamilton and Eddie Deezen frequently made me laugh. There’s a wonderful moment where Robert Stack’s intense general cries while watching Dumbo. But, for the most part, the film never comes together.

That said, 1941 is definitely a Steven Spielberg film. It received three Academy Award nominations, for Cinematography, Sound, and Visual Effects. (All three of those categories, not surprisingly, are more associated with spectacle than with comedy.) The film looks great! Spielberg’s attention to detail is there in the production design and the costumes. Watching 1941, you can see Spielberg’s talent while also seeing why he never directed another comedy.

Previous Icarus Files:

The Best Of Times (1986, directed by Roger Spottiswoode)

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

For years, banker Jack Dundee (Robin Williams) had been haunted by a pass that he dropped in high school. The pass was perfectly thrown by quarterback Reno Hightower (Kurt Russell) but Jack couldn’t bring it in and, as a result, Taft High lost to its rival, Bakersfield. Adding to Jack’s humiliation is that he now works for The Colonel (Donald Moffat), a confirmed Bakersfield fan who also happens to be Jack’s father-in-law. When Jack visits a “massage therapist” (Margaret Whitton) and tells her about his problems, she suggests that he needs to replay the game. Getting everyone interested in replaying the game is not easy. No one wants to be humiliated a second time and Reno, who now fixes vans for a living, fears the he’s lost his edge. Jack dresses up in the Bakersfield mascot’s uniform and vandalizes the town. Finally, everyone is ready for the game. Now, it’s a matter of town pride.

The Best of Times is a likable comedy about getting older and wishing you could have just one more chance to be young again and to have your entire future ahead of you. Jack is haunted by that one dropped pass, feeling that it has cast a cloud over his entire life. Reno is still a town hero but he’s struggling financially and in debt to Jack’s bank. Replaying the game isn’t going to fix their lives but it is going to give them one last chance to relive their former glory and maybe an opportunity to learn that, even if they are getting older, they’re still living in the best of times. The world that these two men live in is skillfully drawn and believable, with character actors like Moffat, M. Emmet Walsh, R.G. Armstrong, and Dub Taylor adding to the local color. Jack and Reno’s wives are played by Holly Palance and Pamela Reed and they are also strong and well-developed characters. Finally, Robin Williams and Kurt Russell are a strong comedic team. Russell is perfectly cast as the aging jock and Williams gives one of his more restrained performances as Jack, allowing us to see the sadness behind Jack’s smile.

The stakes aren’t particularly high in The Best Of Times. It’s just a football game between some middle-aged men looking to regain their youth. But the story sticks with you.

Popeye (1980, directed by Robert Altman)

Posted on February 20, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

I like Popeye.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m the only one. Popeye got such bad reviews and was considered to be such a box office disappointment that director Robert Altman didn’t make another major film for a decade. Producer Robert Evans, who was inspired to make Popeye after he lost a bidding war for the film rights to Annie, lost his once-sterling reputation for being able to find hits. This was Robin Williams’s first starring role in a big screen production and his career didn’t really recover until he did Good Morning Vietnam seven years later. Never again would anyone attempt to build a film around songs written by Harry Nilsson. Screenwriter Jules Fieffer distanced himself from the film, saying that his original script had been ruined by both Robert Evans and Robert Altman. Along with Spielberg’s 1941 and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, Popeye was one of the box office failures that signaled the end of the era in which directors were given a ton of money and allowed to do whatever they wanted to with it.

I don’t care. I like Popeye. I agree with the critics about Nilsson’s score but otherwise, I think the film does a great job of capturing the feeling of a comic strip come to life. Altman was criticized for spending a lot of money to construct, from scratch, the seaside village that Popeye, Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall), Bluto (Paul L. Smith), Wimpy (Paul Dooley), and everyone else called home but it does pay off in the movie. Watching Popeye, you really are transported to the world that these eccentric characters inhabit. If the film were made today, the majority of it would be CGI and it wouldn’t be anywhere near as interesting. Featuring one of Altman’s trademark ensemble casts, Popeye create a world that feels real and lived in.

Mumbling the majority of his lines and keeping one eye closed, Robin Williams is a surprisingly believable Popeye, even before he’s force fed spinach at the end of the movie. Paul L. Smith was an actor who was born to play the bullying Bluto and there’s something very satisfying about seeing him (literally) turn yellow. As for Shelley Duvall, she is the perfect Olive Oyl. Not only does she have the right look for Olive Oyl but she’s so energetic and charmingly eccentric in the role that it is easy to see what both Popeye and Bluto would fall in love with her. Though the humor is broad, both Williams and Duvall bring a lot of heart to their roles, especially in the scenes where they take care of their adopted infant, Swee’Pea. Popeye may be a sailor but he’s a father first.

Popeye deserves a better reputation than it has. It may not have been appreciated when it was originally released but Popeye has a robust spirit that continues to distinguish it from the soulless comic book and cartoon adaptations of today.

Police Academy (1984, directed by Hugh Wilson)

Posted on April 25, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

God help us, it has come to this. After a month and a half being locked down, Lisa and I watched the first two Police Academy movies last night.

The first Police Academy takes place in an unnamed city that appears to be in California. Due to a shortage of officers, the mayor has announced that the police academy will now accept anyone who wants to apply, regardless of their physical or mental condition. Naturally, this leads to a collection of misfits applying. Martinet Lt. Harris (G.W. Bailey) is determined to force all of them to drop out of the academy and he has a point because I wouldn’t trust Michael Winslow’s human sound effects guy to investigate any crimes that were committed in my neighborhood. What’s he going to do? Make silly noises while I’m trying to figure out who stole my car?

The leader of the recruits is Carey Mahoney (Steve Guttenberg). Mahoney is being forced to attend the academy because otherwise, he’ll have to go to jail for disturbing the peace. Police Academy is a film that asks you to believe that a character played by Steve Guttenberg has not only frequently been in trouble with the law but would also make a good cop. Guttenberg doesn’t really do a bad job as Mahoney. He’s a likable actor, even if his filmography has more duds than hits. But he’s still miscast in a role that demands someone like Bill Murray, who could be both tough and funny.

The other recruits include Bubba Smith as Hightower and David Graf as the insane gun nut, Tackleberry. Kim Cattrall is the rich girl who wants to be a cop and who falls in love with Mahoney. George Gaynes is Commandant Lassard, who is out-of-it but not as out-of-it as he would be in the sequels.

You have to wonder how many parents, in the late 80s and early 90s, allowed their children to rent the R-rated Police Academy from the local video store without realizing the the first Police Academy is considerably more raunchy than the later sequels. How did mom and dad react when they walked into the room and discovered their children watching Georgina Spelvin giving George Gaynes a blow job from underneath a podium? Or how about the scene where recruit George Martin (Andrew Rubin) is spied having a threesome in the girl’s dorm? The first Police Academy film is definitely made from the same mold as Animal House, Caddyshack, and Stripes. It’s just not as funny as any of those films.

However, it is funnier than every Police Academy film that followed it. There’s enough solid laughs to make the first Police Academy fun in a stupid way. For instance, just about every scene involving accident-prone Cadet Fackler (Bruce Mahler) was funny. Bubba Smith gets a lot of laughs just by being Bubba Smith in a stupid movie. It’s also hard not to love it when Cadet Hooks (Marion Ramsey) yelled, “Don’t move, Dirtbag!” Hell, I even laughed at the sound effects guy once or twice.

All of the Police Academy films are now on Netflix. Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment.